Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code

Artemis sighed. ‘A genius, yes. A lawyer, hardly. I am, mademoiselle, a customer.’

And suddenly the nurse was all charm.

‘Oh, a customer! Why didn’t you say so? I’ll show you right in.

Would sir care for tea, coffee or perhaps something stronger?’

‘I am thirteen years old, mademoiselle.’

‘A juice?’

‘Tea would be fine. Earl Grey if you have it. No sugar, obviously; it might make me hyperactive.’

The nurse was quite prepared to accept sarcasm from an actual paying customer, and directed Artemis to a lounge where the style was, again, space age. Plenty of shining velour and eternity mirrors.

Artemis had half finished a cup of something that was most definitely not Earl Grey when Doctor Lane’s door swung open.

‘Do come in,’ said a tall woman uncertainly.

‘Shall I walk?’ asked Artemis. ‘Or will you beam me up?’

The office walls were lined with frames. Along one side were the doctor’s degrees and certificates. Artemis suspected that many of these certificates could be obtained over the weekend. Along the wall were several photographic portraits. Above these read the legend ‘Love Lies Sleeping’. Artemis almost left then, but he was desperate.

Doctor Lane sat behind her desk. She was a very glamorous woman, with flowing red hair and the tapered fingers of an artist. Her smock was Dior. Even Constance Lane’s smile was perfect too perfect.

Artemis looked closer and realized that her entire face was the handiwork of a plastic surgeon. Obviously, this woman’s life was all about cheating time. He had come to the right place.

‘Now, young man, Tracy says you wish to become a customer?’ The doctor tried to smile, but the stretching made her face shine like a balloon.

‘Not personally, no,’ replied Artemis. ‘But I do wish to rent one of your units. Short term.’

Constance Lane pulled a company pamphlet from the drawer, ringing some figures in red.

‘Our rates are quite steep.’

Artemis did not even glance at the numbers.

‘Money is no object. We can set up a wire transfer right now from my Swiss bank. In five minutes you can have a hundred thousand pounds sitting in your personal account. All I need is a unit for a single night.’

The figure was impressive. Constance thought of all the nips and tucks it would buy. But she was still reluctant. .

‘Generally minors are not allowed to commit relatives to our chambers. It’s the law actually.’

Artemis leaned forward.

‘Doctor Lane. Constance. What I’m doing here is not exactly legal, but no one is being hurt either. One night and you’re a rich woman. This time tomorrow and I was never here. No bodies, no complaints.’

The doctor’s hand fingered her jaw line.

‘One night?’

‘Just one. You won’t even know we’re here.’

Constance took a hand mirror from her desk drawer, studying her reflection closely.

‘Call your bank,’ she said.

STONEHEHGE, WILTSHIRE

Two LEP chutes emerged in the south of England. One in London itself, but that was closed to the public due to the fact that Chelsea Football Club had built their grounds five hundred metres above the shuttle port.

The other port was in Wiltshire, beside what humans referred to as

Stonehenge. Mud People had several theories as to the origins of the structure. These ranged from spaceship landing port to pagan centre of worship. The truth was far less glamorous. Stonehenge had actually been an outlet for a flat-bread-based food. Or, in human terms, a pizza parlour.

A gnome called Bog had realized how many tourists forgot their sandwiches on above-ground jaunts, and so had set up shop beside the terminal. It was a smooth operation. You drove up to one of the windows, named your toppings, and ten minutes later you were stuffing your face.

Of course, Bog had to shift his operation below ground once humans began talking in full sentences. And anyway, all that cheese was making the ground soggy. A couple of the service windows had even collapsed.

It was difficult for fairy civilians to get visas to visit Stonehenge because of the constant activity on the surface. Then again, hippies saw fairies every day and it never made the front page. As a police officer,

Holly didn’t have a visa problem; one flash of the Recon badge opened a hole right through to the surface.

But being a Recon officer didn’t help if there was no magma flare scheduled. And the Stonehenge chute had been dormant for over three centuries. Not a spark. In the absence of a hotshot to ride, Holly was forced to travel aboard a commercial shuttle.

The first available shuttle was heavily booked, but luckily there was a late cancellation so Holly wasn’t forced to bump a passenger.

The shuttle was a fifty-seater luxury cruiser. It had been commissioned especially by the Brotherhood of Bog to visit their patron’s site. These fairies, mostly gnomes, dedicated their lives to pizza and every year on the anniversary of Bog’s first day in business, they chartered a shuttle and took a picnic above ground. The picnic consisted of pizza, tuber beer and pizza-flavoured ice cream. Needless to say, they did not remove their rubber pizza bonnets for the entire day.

So, for sixty-seven minutes, Holly sat wedged between two beer-swilling gnomes singing the pizza song:

There were a hundred and fourteen verses. And it didn’t get any better. Holly had never been happier to see the Stonehenge landing lights.

The actual terminal was pretty comprehensive, boasting a three-lane visa clearance booth, entertainment complex and duty-free shopping. The current souvenir craze was a Mud Man hippy doll that said,

‘Peace, man,’ when you pressed its tummy.

Holly badged her way through the customs queue, taking a security elevator to the surface. Stonehenge had become easier to exit recently, because the Mud People had put up fencing. The humans were protecting their heritage, or so they thought. Strange that Mud People seemed more concerned about the past than the present.

Holly strapped on her wings, and once the control booth had given her the go-ahead, she cleared the airlock, soaring to a height of seven thousand feet. There was plenty of cloud cover, but nevertheless she activated her shield. Nothing could spot her now; she was invisible to human and mechanical eyes. Only rats and two species of monkey could see through a fairy shield.

Holly switched on the on-board navigator in the wings’ computer and let the rig do the steering for her. It was nice to be above ground again, and at sunset too. Her favourite time of day. A slow smile spread across her face. In spite of the situation, she was content. This was what she was born to do. Recon. With the wind against her visor and a challenge between her teeth.

KNIGHTSBRIDGE, LONDON

It had been almost two hours since Butler had been shot. Generally the grace period between heart failure and brain damage is about four minutes, but that period can be extended if the patient’s body temperature is lowered sufficiently. Drowning victims, for example, can be resuscitated for up to an hour after their apparent death. Artemis could only pray that his makeshift cryogenic chamber could hold Butler in stasis until he could be transferred to one of Ice Age’s pods.

Ice Age Cryogenics had a mobile unit for transporting clients from the private clinics where they expired. The van was equipped with its own generator and full surgery. Even if cryogenics was considered crackpot medicine by many physicians, the vehicle itself would meet the strictest standards of equipment and hygiene.